


Nouveau Monde

by NessaLeesche



Category: Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: F/M, Post-Lightning Returns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 11:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5741476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NessaLeesche/pseuds/NessaLeesche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After arriving in the new world, all Hope wants to do is find Lightning. It seems a fruitless search, but Serah knows exactly where her sister is. She also knows how pained both Hope and Lightning are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nouveau Monde

**Author's Note:**

> So, my first bit of FFXIII fan fiction. I mostly started writing it as a way to get into it at all, but I think it turned out pretty okay. Some details about the events post Lightning Returns are probably off, because I never saw any of the works published after it. There are spoilers if you haven't played and beaten LR.

Hope sighed as he removed his glasses. He didn’t really need them, but his father insisted that they would help keep his eyesight from going bad, given how much time he spent in front of computers. Glancing at his reflection on the dark monitor, he noticed how worn he looked. His mother fretted over him constantly. Neither she nor his father retained any memories of Cocoon, or the time when Chaos swept the world. They didn’t know about what had happened to him. The centuries that he had lived, the time spent as Bhunivelze’s puppet, that was something he had to hold in his heart. He tried to lock the memories away, tried to forget and start anew. He would have been successful, had it not been for Lightning.

The pink-haired soldier had burned a mark in him. How could he ever forget her? She’s the one who made him strong. She cared for him when he needed it, but never coddled him. And centuries later, it was his turn. He watched over her as the eyes of the Savior, giving helpful gifts and information. He hadn’t realized until the end that Bhunivelze had become weakened by him. He had done his part in the creation of a true new world, one without the influence of Bhunivelze or Etro.

Through his research, he knew that his comrades had made it to the new world. He found a marriage record for Snow and Serah, school records for Dajh. Noel and Yeul owned a flower shop in a neighboring village. Vanille had been the first to find him, and told him stories about the travels and adventures she went on with Fang. Sazh worked as a commercial airline pilot, she had told him. He helped them get cheaper flights. Hope grinned at the memory of Vanille, bouncing happily as always.

He hadn’t had the courage to ask about Lightning. Serah had given him a sad smile when he left her house the last time. She wasn’t the type to push the issue. She was just as traumatized as everyone else. Lightning must be in contact with her - their whole journey had been spurred onward by Lightning’s desire to help her sister. Hope knew that. He also didn’t want to stress her during the final months of her pregnancy.

He had spent hours upon hours researching, trying to find any trace of Lightning. He looked up Lightning Farron, Claire Farron, Lightning Claire, any combination of her name. He even tried Lumina, to no avail. Either she was deep in hiding, or she had been reborn with a new identity. In frustration, he threw a stack of folders across the room and let out an angry yell.

“Hope!” 

Hope turned to see his father standing in the doorway, looking at him with a stern expression. “Sorry, Dad.”

Bartholomew Estheim looked sadly at his son. As his father, he knew that something was going on with Hope. A father always knows, always cares. But Hope was a grown man, and Bartholomew would let Hope deal with it however he saw fit. Hope wouldn’t have told him anything anyway, he knew that. Hope held things close to his chest, but Bartholomew saw the sadness in his son’s eyes.

“What are you doing here so late? You know you don’t get paid hourly, right?” Bartholomew tried to make a joke to lighten the tension in the air.

“Just finishing up now, Dad. Let me clean this up and I’ll be out in a minute. I’m sorry if I kept you waiting.” Hope knelt and picked up the folders, hastily setting the paperwork inside a drawer. He followed his father out to his car. On the ride home, he scanned the streets, looking for Lightning. He had been doing it ever since he found himself in the new world. Any time he saw a woman walking with purpose, a woman with pink hair, a woman with her shoulders back, his heart leapt into his throat.

It was never her.

\-----

“Why does he torture himself? It’s so stupid! Why can’t I just tell him?” Serah aggressively stirred the stew she was making, bits of it flying out onto the stovetop. “Claire wouldn’t mind, I know she wouldn’t!”

“Serah,” Snow gently put a hand over his wife’s, taking the spoon from her and gesturing for her to sit. “You know the kid. He’d want to find her himself, wouldn’t he? Besides...Lightning is still working things out.”

Serah let out a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, ‘working things out’. You mean hunting? Going off the grid and keeping remote villages safe from wolves and bears?”

Snow laughed. “Hey, she knows what she’s good at. And that’s not what I meant. I meant with Hope.” His wife looked at him with a blank expression. “He saved her. She’s not used to that, you know how independent she is. I don’t know how she feels about it. I don’t even know how she feels about Hope.”

Serah threw up her hands in frustration. “Duh! She cares about him! She’d hate to know how sad he is without her!” She poked Snow in the side. “And that’s without mentioning how sad she is without him.”

Snow plated two bowls of stew, and grabbed two baguettes from the bread basket. He gestured for his wife to join him at the table. They ate in silence for a few minutes. Snow didn’t have time to think about Hope or Lightning, not with his first child on the way. Serah, though, was always so in touch with people. She cared about them, it’s what made her such a great teacher.

“I have to do something about it. I can’t stand to see him so sad, and see her so...Angry.”

“Hon, Lightning is always angry.”

\-----

Lightning settled in to her room at a small tavern. The wolf pack she had slaughtered that day brought in a pretty penny. The farms that were on the far outskirts of this tiny town had been complaining about the wolves for ages, how they would come in and kill their livestock. They had come together to pay Lightning for her services. It wasn’t a common thing to deal with in this new world, a world so populated it made Palumpolum look like the tiniest city in the world. Lightning remembered Bodhum, so small that everyone not only knew everyone, but was friends with everyone. The only towns like that here were the ones where Lightning found her work.

Snow had offered her a job in the military. He worked as an intelligence officer, something Lightning had laughed off as a joke at first. Snow Villiers, intelligence? It seemed impossible to her. She had briefly considered taking it, but she wasn’t ready to settle anywhere yet. She still had so much baggage, so much that she couldn’t talk about with anyone. Her days as the Savior, and how Bhunivelze had nearly tricked her. The only person she could ever talk to about it was Hope.

But her feelings about Hope were muddled. On the one hand, he was just this kid that ended up tagging along with her during their l’Cie days, a weakling who she had to protect and force to be strong. The poor kid had to grow up entirely too fast. And then she had watched as he helped her sister on her journey. She saw how smart he was, how determined he was to find her, and Vanille, and Fang. He had grown up - he was taller than her, even. But centuries later...Bhunivelze had returned him to his younger form. Lightning realized later that it must have been planned that way, to return him to a form that she would remember and cherish. A form that she would trust.

Of course she didn’t blame Hope for anything that had happened. It was all Bhunivelze’s plan, it had nothing to do with Hope. But she knew that here, in the new world, Hope had been reunited with his parents. He had been given the life that he had missed out on when they were made l’Cie. How old was he? How old was she, for that matter? Physically, she still looked 21. Mentally, though, she was centuries old. She remembered everything, and all the feelings had come flooding back upon her arrival in this new, lush world.

Her cell phone rang and broke her out of her thoughts. “Hello?” she answered warily.

“Claire Farron, I have a bone to pick with you!” Her sister’s voice sounded shrill and angry. Lightning sighed. She knew what this was going to be about. Serah was always on her to settle down, to take the job in the military and live as peacefully as possible. They had had enough of adventuring.

“I told you, Serah, I’m considering it. I just need a little more time-”

“It’s not about the stupid military job!” Serah yelled angrily. “It’s about Hope! You remember him, don’t you?”

Lightning felt anger rising up in her. “Of course I remember Hope. I could never forget Hope-”

“Then why haven’t you spoken to him? Ever?! Do you know how sad he is? Do you even know how sad you are?” Serah’s voice was still angry, but she sounded more on the verge of tears. “Claire, you have to-”

“Let’s get one thing straight, Serah. I don’t have to do anything.” Lightning cut her sister’s words off. “I’ll...I’ll talk to him when I’m ready."

“And when is that going to be?” Serah sighed. “You’re going to lose him forever if you don’t do something soon. He’s not going to wait for you forever.”

Lightning couldn’t help but laugh. “You make it sound like we’re lovers or something. It’s not…” She trailed off. Of course she loved Hope, but it was the same way she felt about, say, Snow. Well, maybe it was a little less reluctant than that.

“Suuuuure. Okay. Yeah, you tell yourself that.” Lightning could hear the smirk on Serah’s face. “Come over for dinner tomorrow, would you? Please? I miss my sister.” Back to the cheery younger sister voice. Lightning cursed herself for how easily she fell for it.

“Okay, okay, fine. I’ll be there.” She hung up the phone before Serah could say anything else. A second later, her phone buzzed with a text. She opened it. It was a picture of Hope and Snow, standing in front of Noel and Yeul’s shop, helping them put up a sign. Another text came in.

_ Just try and tell me you don’t miss that boy. _

“Damn it, Serah,” Lightning cursed under her breath. She hadn’t seen Hope at all. She didn’t realize he had been brought to the new world in his older body. It suited him. It didn’t seem right to trap him in the body of a child, when his mind and experience spoke of so much more.

She curled under the blankets, cocooning herself, trying to shield herself from any possible memories. Of course, they all flooded back. They always did, every night. Glimpses of the old world flashed before her eyes - the knife she had given Hope, the pictures she had seen in his house (he looked like a baby in pictures that had only been taken weeks before she met him - she blamed herself for the weariness in his eyes), the way he squinted at monitors in the Academy, and the way he always greeted her in the last thirteen days. “Welcome back, Light.”

\-----

Hope sighed when he arrived at Serah’s house the following evening. She had begged him to come over for dinner, insisting that he was working too hard and needed to take some time for himself. He would have rather curled up with a book to relax, or more likely, continued to do research in an attempt to find Lightning. He could hear two voices arguing in the house, and he warily knocked on the door. The voices silenced, and heavy footsteps approached the door.

“Hey, kid!” Snow, still taller than Hope by several inches, greeted him with a ruffling of his hair. “Good to see you!”

“You too,” Hope replied simply. “Uh...What’s going on?” Snow held the door close, not letting Hope see inside the house. “I thought I was coming over for dinner.”

“Oh, you are! I just...Well. Um.” Snow ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. He shrugged and laughed a little as he opened the door wider. Hope peered past him and saw Serah, and in front of her, their back turned to him…

“Lightning!” Hope gasped. She turned around, and her eyes widened for just a split second when she saw him. He couldn’t help the grin that formed on his face, and rushed to her. When he reached her, he wanted to hold her close to him, but hesitated. The look of astonishment on her face had disappeared, only to be replaced by her usual look of annoyance. “Hi,” he said dumbly.

Serah looked as though Christmas had come early. Her hands were near her mouth, like she was going to scream in excitement. Snow approached her, and pushed her away gently by the waist. “We’ll give you two a minute.” He winked at Hope, who rolled his eyes in return. Snow had mentioned often his theory of Hope’s love for Lightning, and how it went past anything that he insisted. The truth was, the more Hope had thought of her, the more he fell in love with the idea of her. With her standing right in front of him, he found that his heart was racing, his palms sweaty, and he felt like he might collapse.

“Lightning...Where have you been?” He asked, when the couple walked away.

“Around.” she replied with a shrug. Hope felt a dagger in his chest. Was she not happy to see him? He theorized that she was in contact with nearly everyone else. Why had she not found him? His brain was full of nothing but questions.

He didn’t know that Lightning’s heartbeat was matching his. Her knees were weak, and she could feel a faint blush tinting her cheeks. He practically towered above her, at least she felt that way. The last time she had seen him, he was shorter than her. She couldn’t shake the memory of Bhunivelze stealing Hope’s body, Hope’s voice. She remembered that Hope had been the one to save her. She was ready to become the goddess of death, to allow him to venture into the new world without the baggage. She was ready to sacrifice herself for him. To see him in front of her now, looking down at her with those inquisitive eyes she remembered so well, it affected her deeply.

Hope took a step closer to her. “Light...Can I just…?” He left his question open-ended, but she didn’t move. He slowly moved his arms around her, held her tentatively. At first she stiffened, not used to the physical affection. Her arms, as if they had a mind of their own, moved to rest on Hope’s back. She could feel his heart racing, and tightened her grip on him as if it would calm him. Of course it didn’t. His heart filled with joy and he let out a half-laugh, half-sob. She followed suit, a few tears escaping her ice blue eyes.

Serah had to contain the squeals of joy she wanted to make, spying on the pair from the kitchen. Snow rapped her gently on the head, and pulled her away. “Give them their privacy, Serah. This has been a long time coming, you know that.”

Hope pulled away, but didn’t remove his arms from her waist. Her hands rested on his shoulders as she gazed up at him. Her eyes weren’t as piercing as he remembered. They were weary, probably just as much as his own. “Welcome back, Light.”

She gasped a little, blinking away tears. “Hope...I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I disappeared. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. I never got a chance to say it after...I didn’t want you to have to remember anything.”

“I chose to. I came back for you. Do you think I’d want to be here if you weren’t? If you were still…” Hope couldn’t finish the sentence, but Lightning knew what he meant. “I’m still not okay.”

“Neither am I.” Lightning chuckled a little into his chest. “I haven’t...I haven’t talked about it with anyone. There was no one I wanted to talk to about it. No one except...Well, except you. You were the one constant. You were there for all of it.” She shook her head. “I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get better.” She looked down at the ground, her hands at her sides again.

Hope took one of her hands in his own, and tilted her head up with the other. “Light...You will. Listen to me. I think...I think that between the two of us, we can get better. We can move past all of those terrible things, but I think we have to do that together. We’re...We’re the only ones who know what the other went through.” Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Serah spying on them from the kitchen. “Listen...Do you wanna skip out on dinner? We can go somewhere and just...Start. Start the healing process, you know?”

Lightning looked over at Serah. She seemed to know that her sister had been spying on them from the beginning. Serah, to her credit, looked away guiltily. “That sounds like a good idea.” She turned to yell at her sister. “We’re skipping dinner, you spy.”

The pair of them walked out of the house, Serah yelling apologies behind them. Their fingers brushed together, and Hope took Lightning’s hand.


End file.
